


Reach for the Stars

by CanisMajor1234



Category: Captain America (Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, M/M, Post CAWS, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, like five hugs and a cup of real coffee, not entirely canon compliant, tw suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-23 00:39:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7459833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CanisMajor1234/pseuds/CanisMajor1234
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He wonders how Steve is doing, staring at the view of the ocean he has from his hotel window in Japan. Missing him, maybe. Looking for him, definitely. Bucky wishes he remembered more about Steve. Broken memories are all he has. He tries to piece them together into a picture, however fragmented, but he can’t seem to separate the man of his memories from the target he dragged out of the Hudson. They’re the same person, he knows, but…<br/>But the Steve of Bucky’s memories was a little guy. Deaf in his right ear. Bucky remembers… “On your left.” He would say that every time, as though to announce himself, so that he wouldn’t scare the shit out of his friend. Friend. They were… friends? Or, something like that. "</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reach for the Stars

_ Reach for the stars, for empty space and dying lights. _

Bucky learns the first week not to stay at any hotels. At least, not if he intends to sleep that night. The dreams come like a flood, washing over him, dragging him down into his memories again. He tends to wake up screaming, thrashing, babbling in broken Russian. That kind of thing concerns the neighbors, of course. 

The last thing Bucky wants is to be a bother.

Okay, maybe not the  _ last _ thing. But it's close to the last thing. He doesn't want to cause any trouble for anyone. He's done enough harm, after all. No need to add more to the pile. 

And when trouble invariably finds him, Bucky has his contingency plans. Draw the threat away from civilians, of course; he's tired of people dying because of him. Once they're away from everything, Bucky pretty much has two modes when it comes to that. The first is to fight for his life, like every breath might be his last because  _ it just might be _ . The other...

There are times when Bucky just can't fight anymore. He does because he has to, of course. But if he takes a few more blows than usual, lets the knife scrape the air a little too close to his ribs, to his spine, it's not like there's anyone there to see.

Bucky's too strong for his own good. He knows this. If he miscalculates just how much strength to grab someone with, he could seriously hurt them. Wrench joints. Break bones. But it doesn't occur to him just how  _ dangerous _ he is until he's sitting at the counter of a dinner in Sacramento and realizes that he knows fifty different ways to kill everyone in the room at that very moment. He could reap so much death with just his bare hands, sow so much discord without a second thought, and there is _ no one _ that can stop him, short of a superhero. 

The thought makes him more than a little sick. He pushes his breakfast away, apologizing to the waitress for his sudden lack of appetite when she asks if anything was wrong with the food. _ It's not you, it's me. _ Heh. Ain't that the truth these days. 

He dreams of falling that night, of biting cold and the roar of a train far above. The river is iced over, but he smashes right through. Because of the way he falls, the impact breaks his arm. The edges of the ice cut like glass. By the time he pulls himself from the water, his arm is practically useless. The pain is so great, he's almost certain he'll die from it. But he doesn't. He-

Bucky gasps awake. He's sleeping against a cardboard-only dumpster behind a supermarket, the chill of the metal sinking into his bones and he no matter how tightly he curls into himself he just  _ can't get warm _ and he... He has to go. Has to  _ run _ , has to  _ flee _ , has to do _ something  _ other than cower in fear or fight for his life or senselessly follow someone else’s commands because in his conscious memory that's  _ all he's been able to do _ and he's so _ done _ with that shit.

So he leaves. He has this American passport with a picture of him smiling, clean-shaven with his hair pulled back in a messy bun, above the name James Buchanan Barnes, and he honestly doesn't know when or where he got it. It's his, though, and it gets him through airport security and onto a plane to God knows where. Anywhere but where he is. 

Money isn't an issue. All of Bucky's main accounts were closed when he "died" during WWII, and a few of his accounts closed because the banks just weren't there anymore. He does, however, have a few accounts he kept secret that are miraculously still open, and they've had something like  _ seventy years  _ to accumulate interest. 

He considers sending Steve a postcard from Rabat. It's a beautiful city, the kind an artist could spend weeks drawing and still not grow tired of. He doesn't, though. He doesn't want to give Steve false hope, and he's definitely not ready to be face to face with the man again. Hell, Bucky barely remembers anything about him. Bits and pieces. Enough to convince himself that he knows Steve, just not how. 

Sometimes he doesn't even remember that much. There are very few things quite as disconcerting as losing minutes, hours, sometimes even whole  _ days _ to his memories. It’s terrifying, especially considering that it barely takes anything to put him into that state. A stranger might say something, do something completely innocent, and he’d end up back in Siberia, in the underground bunker, in the frigid water. He  _ hates _ it.

So he tries to stay in warm, out of the way places. Places without too much tourist traffic, but not so small and close-knit that he draws too much attention. He goes to Spain for some time, then Egypt. Skips over the Middle East, for the most part, because he doesn’t want to involve himself in that mess. He’s wandering, and he knows it. He doesn’t have any goal in mind when he travels, except to keep moving. Like a fugitive on the run, he can’t seem to let himself stay in one place for too long. 

Even in the humid heat of India, in the tropical colors and the lush forests, Bucky still wakes up in ice and cold steel. It happens less and less these days, but there are times when he can still feel it, itching under his skin. There’s winter in his bones. That will never change. 

There are times he wishes he would just stop trying. Laying in bed in a hotel in Singapore, staring at the ceiling, Bucky wonders if the survival instinct was something the scientists bothered to reprogram into him. It’d only be useful in two modes, really. Jacked up to eleven, and the Winter Soldier would fight more fiercely because every fight might be his last. Taken out completely, and his only incentive would be to follow orders.

Bucky comes to the conclusion that they had to have reprogramed it into him, because that instinct to survive was the only thing keeping him from throwing himself out the window right then and there. He wonders if it would work. Probably not. His serum isn’t as strong as Steve’s, but the accelerated healing is still very much there. 

He wonders how Steve is doing, staring at the view of the ocean he has from his hotel window in Japan. Missing him, maybe. Looking for him, definitely. Bucky wishes he remembered more about Steve. Broken memories are all he has. He tries to piece them together into a picture, however fragmented, but he can’t seem to separate the man of his memories from the target he dragged out of the Hudson. They’re the same person, he knows, but…

But the Steve of Bucky’s memories was a little guy. Deaf in his right ear. Bucky remembers… “On your left.” He would say that every time, as though to announce himself, so that he wouldn’t scare the shit out of his friend.  _ Friend _ . They were… friends? Or, something like that. 

_ Old brick walls, stained with time. A mattress on the floor. A body too small, hands too cold. He never had good circulation. Need to warm him up. _

Bucky presses his forehead to the glass and tries to cling to the memory, but it slips out of his grip just as quickly as it had come. All he’s left with is the faintest impression of warmth curling around his hips and a heaviness in his heart that he can’t explain.

The Falcon slips into the seat across from Bucky at a cafe in Paris. Sam is his name, Bucky remembers. Bucky remembers tearing at his wings and sending him plummeting towards the ground. Not a memory Bucky is particularly proud of, but, then again, is he proud of any of his memories since the fall?

“Steve sent me to bring you home,” Sam admits, and raises a placating hand before Bucky can say anything. “But I understand if you’re not ready to come back yet. Man out of time, trying to put himself back together. Don’t rush it,” he says, and he sounds almost painfully serious. “You’ll just do more damage to yourself that way.”

“What are you, some kind of counselor?” Bucky jokes. It’s a weak jab to cover up his relief and gratitude, and Sam just smiles. 

“Yeah, actually, I am. And I’ve seen what happens when you try to shove a soldier into civilian clothes without giving him time to put down the gun.” He slides a card across the table. It’s a simple thing, a name on the front, a number hand-written on the back. “For when you’re ready,” he says, taking his coffee from the waiter. “Steve’s still going to expect me to be looking for you, but I’m not going to force you come home until you’re ready, yeah?”

Bucky nods and smiles. Shakes Sam’s hand before he leaves. Shoves the card into his hard-copy of The Fellowship of the Rings and hopes he’ll forget it.

He does, for a little bit. He forgets it until the night in Romania he finds himself on the roof of his hotel running from the shadows reaching up for him and he realizes now he has someone to reach out to. Someone who will tell him that everything’s okay, that everything is going to be fine, that the fight is over. He can put down his gun. 

It’s a shitty disposable phone. It’s not a number Sam will recognize. It doesn’t matter. He picks up on the second ring, voice bleary with sleep. Bucky has to work to get the words past his throat.

“I-I’m not ready yet,” Bucky chokes out, and the words just pour off his lips. “I’m not ready to go back, I- I just need someone to talk to. Or, to talk to me. Just talk to me, please, just-”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Sam chides, and he doesn’t sound half-asleep anymore. “Calm down, Bucky. It’s alright. Just breathe. Where are you?”

Bucky presses his lips tight together so that he doesn’t blurt out where he is. He knows that Sam will try to come and get him. He doesn’t want that. But Sam is just so  _ gentle _ , so kind, that Bucky wants to tell him everything. So he says nothing. Sam, ever gentle, ever kind, takes nothing and runs with it.

“That’s alright. It’s fine. Hey, did you guys have Starbucks during WWII? I mean, probably not. But Starbucks. It’s like the fast-food of cafes. And they have this thing called a pumpkin-spice latte. It’s shit, let me tell you…”

Sam tells him about pumpkin-spice lattes. About Shamrock shakes at McDonalds, and how they’re basically leprechaun puke in a plastic cup. About this specialty coffee that’s apparently good because it went through the digestive tract of a cat or some shit. About things that don’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but Bucky clings to it like it’s all he has. He sits against the air conditioning unit and listens to Sam babble, chipping in when he can, until the sun starts to rise over the horizon to chase away the shadows. 

Except, the shadows are already gone.

From then on, every week or so, Bucky “checks in” with Sam. He doesn’t need to sometimes, less and less as time goes on, and he starts to feel like a son checking in with his mom. But that’s okay. Sam doesn’t mind, so Bucky doesn’t either. They talk for about an hour each time. Sometimes Sam talks the whole time, about random things and strange facts. Sometimes Bucky talks, about memories, about Steve and WWII and everything and anything he remembers so that maybe he will  _ keep _ remembering it. Sometimes that actually have a conversation; they squabble, for the most part, though occasionally it is civil enough to be considered a debate. 

It helps, quite a bit. Talking about the memories helps Bucky cement them in his mind. He remembers more and more, loses himself less and less. He remembers Steve. He remembers… what they were. Friends, but more than that. More than friends. Closer.  _ Lovers _ . He remembers kissing Steve in a room of an abandoned building, walls brick and stained by time, a single dirty mattress on the floor. Somewhere only they would know.

He tells Sam to tell Steve that’s where their meeting place will be. “The place only we know.” Sam protests a little bit (because “what kind of fucking clue is that”). Steve will get it though. He  _ has to _ . Because if it was so important that Bucky clung to it through all those years, then Steve had to have as well. Because Bucky remembers the way Steve looked at him, with all the love and adoration in those beautiful blue eyes and-

“Bucky? Do you remember me?”

He’s standing the the doorway. Bucky sits against the wall. It’s too cold, and his joints ache from it. He half-staggers trying to stand up, then flops back to the floor.

“Your mom’s name is Sarah,” Bucky says, confidently, because he  _ remembers _ . And maybe Steve isn’t exactly like the lanky kid he remembers, the kid always getting into fights and biting off more than he could chew, but… “Your middle name is Grant, but I was the only one allowed to call you that. Something about your mom only ever using it when you got into really bad trouble. You used to wear newspapers in your shoes.”

Steve smiles, and it’s just like Bucky remembers.

_ Reach for the stars, for empty space and dying lights, _

_ for there you will find the stuff of dreams. _

**Author's Note:**

> This one is for the friend who asked me to write this when she wasn't feeling too great. I hope this is everything you wanted.


End file.
